1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to energy storage and more specifically, this invention relates to a device and method for storing and transporting heat.
2. Background of the Invention
Smart metering is becoming more mainstream for residential electricity customers. This allows those customers to take advantage of lower rates when powering electric appliances, recharging battery storage banks, and regenerating ice storage from chillers or direct expansion (DX) air conditioning systems.
Heretofore, chillers and DX systems embodying stored ice technology have been utilized to take advantage of low electricity rates. But these electricity rates are usually relegated to contracts between the power company and its large industrial customers.
The advent of smart metering has the potential of making ice storage technology economical to residential users. Air conditioners can use energy to freeze large volumes of water during off-peak hours, then utilize that thermal bank during peak hours to cool the home. Unfortunately, initial ice formation inhibits the formation of additional ice, given the insulative characteristics of that initial ice. This feature makes the ice formation process inefficient, and commercial users, who have had access to low night electric rates for many years, have barely used the technology.
A need exists in the art for an efficient method and device for transporting and storing heat from a thermodynamic perspective. The method and device should eliminate the problems of state of the art ice storage systems in that efficiencies of several magnitudes higher than state of the art systems are realized. The method and device should be compact and modular to facilitate installation in home and industry and easily repairable.